Thexder

Thexder is a classic action-arcade game from Game Arts. The player is a fighter robot, but is able to transform into a jet. Originally released in 1985 for the NEC PC-8801 platform in Japan, the game quickly became a huge hit selling over 500,000 copies.

Later that same year, Game Arts licensed Thexder to Square in order to develop a conversion for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game console. In 1987, Game Arts also developed a Thexder conversion for the MSX platform.

The NEC PC8801 platform was only popular in Japan and, despite home market success, Thexder garnered little attention abroad initially. With the conversion for the MSX (the best selling platform in Brazil and many east European countries) it became an international hit. The game was subsequently licensed to Sierra Entertainment for release in the United States. In 1987, Sierra ported the game to multiple platforms including the IBM PC, Commodore Amiga, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Apple Macintosh, and Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo3). Thexder continued its track record of success and became a best-seller for Sierra.

The two Game Arts developers responsible for creating Thexder were Hibiki Godai and Satoshi Uesaka. In 1986, they developed another action-arcade game called Silpheed and in 1989 they wrote a Thexder sequel named Fire Hawk: Thexder The Second Contact. As with the original, FireHawk sold extremely well in Japan and the United States. Today, Thexder is still remembered by many as a classic action-arcade game.